And the top 4 MMFF movie earners are…

First off, congratulations to the 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival Executive Committee for pulling off a much-needed change!

In place of old jokes and tired franchises is a refreshing roster of films that didn’t just lazily rely on the its actors, but moreso on the strength of its stories and the brilliance by which they were told.

We loved that Saving Sally was finally birthed after ten long years, a documentary (Sunday Beauty Queen), was given its rightful place, and indies were put side-by-side a huge commercial film like Vince & Kathi & James. We loved that the festival had a lot of genres covered too: horror (Seklusyon), comedy (Babae sa Septic Tank 2), drama (Kabisera and Oro), and romcoms.

And it seemed like everyone loved it, too. According to a statement released by the MMFF execom on its Facebook page, the festival has met its first day targets this year. Yay!

“We have re-assessed and set a new benchmark for this festival, we nevertheless look at the financial sales for the 1st day as a real bonus as we have already achieved what we started out to in the first place which is the cultural advancement through our Filipino films,” a portion of its statement read.

It also released the top four earners of this year:

Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank 2

Die Beautiful

Seklusyon

Vince and Kath and James

Note: the list was released it in alphabetical order, sans actual figures.

Is it too soon to conclude that the festival is a success? We don’t think so.